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10 Great Jobs for Midlife Women
Reinvent Your Career
What defines a great job for a midlife woman?
It's one that gets you up every morning eager to work: "It's a perfect fit,'' says Becky Lessard, a finance chief and green czar who's looking at windmills and biomass to power a sock-making factory in Osage, Iowa. "I'm never bored,'' says Cheryl Chalfant, a landscape architect and former advertising executive who loves it when her environmentally conscious teenagers brag about her projects. "This feeds my soul and my intellect,'' says Brenda Wheeler Ehlers, a New Jersey pastor.
It's a job that's in a growing sector of the economy and where the premium isn't on youth but on smarts, savvy, even experience.
Finally, it offers the fluidity -- working remotely, flexible hours -- and the pay that so many midlife women want. Sit in a wireless cafe in Rome, defending your client from IRS aggression at $400 an hour? It's not impossible.
MORE spoke to headhunters, educators, and other experts about societal trends, up-and-coming careers and workplace options. The results: 10 hot jobs that may make you want to change your life.
As a tax accountant you should realize how much time it takes to reasearch all of the different areas of the code, not to mention the areas of grey and seeing if you could make it work.
Shame on you thinking that you are better than anyone. I am a friend of Mary Fran. I am also a friend and student of Eva. I gave up my entire summer to study for and take the exam, went into end of year for my 15 corporate clients and then into my seasonal work of 250 individual clients.
With my knowledge that I gained being an EA, I have successfully argued 3 audits- two were created by H&R Block. I guide my clients based on the laws and the rules, and yes, even the grey since there are so many shades of it. Perhaps if you take your blockers off, you might see that EA's are as knowledgeable as "Tax Accountants". I hold my own and the CPA's that I work with for bookkeeping needs know that my work is above level, and ready to go for their purposes based on my knowledge.
I don't advertise my practice. I have grown from 50 individual and 2 corporates to over 300 individuals and 20 corps all on referrals, within 4 years. Have you been able to do that or can you say that?
I might not ever see another country, but I do know with the internet anything is possible, since one of my instructors was in Portugal.
Get a grip and do more research. You should apologize.
Kris Hix, EA
What a limited scope of experience you have with the tax world - and the people who populate it!
First of all, the IRS Special Enrollment Examination is a pretty hard exam to pass. CPAs who have been practicing for years can't pass it, without a great deal of study.
Secondly, the Enrolled Agent designation is all about representation. Anyone in 48 states in this country may sign a tax return without any license whatsoever. (Only California and Oregan have licensing requirements. And NJ has just added an experience and education requirement.) Passing the Special Enrollment Examination is all about learning to represent clients who have audit and collections problems. It requires learning all about the various levels of appeals within IRS, and about the source of tax law, and about the courts, in addition to taxation for individuals, partnerships, corporations, gifts, estates and trusts. EAs are among the few professionals who have the privilege, along with CPAs, attorneys and enrolled actuaries, to get a Power of Attorney from a client and represent the client with the client being present. This takes a huge amount of pressure off the client.
Most tax accountants spend their entire careers never doing any audit or collections representation. In fact, they don't even know where to begin. This fact was quite a surprise when I started conducting workshops with IRS and listened to the questions from CPAs and other tax professionals with 20 or 30 years of experience.
Believe me. When someone gets done studying for the Special Enrollment Examination using a course that also includes education in taxation - not just in exam passing, they have a pretty good grounding in taxation.
My students have passed the exam, and were taught how to build a practice that can earn them very high fees - from anywhere in the world. Remember, specialists always earn more.
And yes, with today's technology and communications tools, EAs can work overseas, where Americans often face tax problems and have little or no competent help or advice.
And your comments were very hurtful to Mary Fran. You have no idea what people like her give up in order to spend several months - or even a couple of years - to study for the Special Enrollment Examination. Mary Fran is an amazing, versatile human being - and an excellent tax professional. She is constantly learning new disciplines and languages - and growing.
An apology is in order.
Best wishes
Eva Rosenberg, EA